Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Creative Commons blog and even Eben Moglen are all talking about this video explaining Web 2.0, the hyper-web, or however you want to call it. It was quite an amazing display, really well done. Web 2.0 is one of those terms that I see defined in different ways. Originally, it was meant a description of web-based or browser-based applications, such as gMail, Google Desktop, gadgets, Windows Live, etc. Now it is used to describe user-generated content, social networking and the wiki web.

I still felt that the point was over-stated. Do we really need to re-think everything?

3 comments:

What I found interesting was the insight into how technical changes "behind the scenes", in particular the rise of XML (and, as the video could have added, Ajax) has driven the amazing innovation we've seen on the web in the past three or four years.

Another highly relevant factors that could have been mentioned is the rise of broadband and the "always-on" internet connection. The significance of broadband is only partly the improvement in download speed: the biggest impact is on the change in relationship between the individual PC and the web, with a much more blurred boundary between the PC and web-based applications.

If I find myself using a dial-up connection (thankfully an almost unheard-of event now), it's not the speed I miss, it's the sense of being fully connected at all times in a seamless manner, not having to worry about whether what I'm doing is using "local" or "remote" systems.

I've yet to find anyone outside of techy circles who has even heard of "web 2.0", let along become animated at a description of it. Nice technology, hardly groundbreaking, too often conflated with interesting social/IPR trends by the likes of Lessig.

I think you are missing the point somewhat. It is not the *technology* per se that is being discussed. It is the implications for the *social* that is interesting. Outside of technology circles and I can assure you that particularly postmodern writers and philosophers are debating the technology changes and raising important questions about so-called Man.